It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)

Monday, March 19, 2007

Not His Peers

Former Canadian, remember he renounced his Canadian citizenship, Conrad Black, Lord Black of Crossharbour, will be judged in the United States by the working class. Which belies the old adage; of being judged by your peers.

Since he has a peerage, I guess they could have held court in the House of Lords. But then they would have acquitted him being good old boys and all.

The mask of invulnerability has begun to slip. For months, Conrad Black has scatterbombed his assailants with bombastic bravado and patronising put-downs. But as he arrived in Chicago to face a criminal trial which could consign him to dotage in jail, the scandal-hit media mogul looked tired, pale and faintly fearful.

The former Telegraph owner and friend of Lady Thatcher faces charges of racketeering, fraud, money laundering, tax evasion and obstruction of justice. With his bulky frame leaning on a courtroom table, he has spent two days listening to childcare niggles, health woes and financial hardships which jurors need settling in order to spend three months on a $40-a-day (£21) stipend sitting in judgment over him.

It is a window on to the life of ordinary folk which Black has never been near. He admits as such, complaining that his Rolls-Royce lifestyle of vintage wine, tuxedos and multiple homes is key to his downfall: "Since biblical times, and probably before, the wealthy have been envied and condemned."

But instead of throwing himself on the mercy of the Queen and her Lords, Lord Black high tailed back to the country he despises, that of his birth, the one he renounced his citizenship of.

And there is further irony here, for the Black Lord is fan of that other famous racketeering Chicagoan; Al Capone

Jeffrey Cramer, the young prosecutor who is expected to deliver the government's opening argument today, even looks like Eliot Ness, who put Al Capone in jail for 11 years for tax evasion.So perhaps to truly be judged by his peers Lord Black would not appear before his fellow British Lords but the Lords of Crime, like Capone, who like Black were busted on Rico charges.